File:In Morocco (1920) (14779888264).jpg

Identifier: inmorocco00wharuoft (find matches)
Title: In Morocco
Year: 1920 (1920s)
Authors: Wharton, Edith, 1862-1937
Subjects: Morocco -- Description and travel
Publisher: New York Scribner
Contributing Library: Robarts - University of Toronto
Digitizing Sponsor: MSN

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ir children,and western writers have laid so much stress onthis that one would suppose children could be lovedonly by inert and ignorant parents. It is in factcharming to see the heavy eyes of the Moroccanfather light up when a brown grass-hopper babyjumps on his knee, and the unfeigned tendernesswith which the childless women of the harem caressthe babies of their happier rivals. But the senti-mentalist moved by this display of family feelingwould do well to cpnsider the lives of these much-petted children. Ignorance, unhealthiness and aprecocious sexual initiation prevail in all classes.Education consists in learning by heart endless pas-sages of the Koran, and amusement in assisting atspectacles that would be unintelligible to westernchildren, but that the pleasantries of the haremmake perfectly comprehensible to Moroccan in-fancy. At eight or nine the little girls are married,at twelve the son of the house is given his firstnegress; and thereafter, in the rich and leisured ( 194 1
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HAREMS AND CEREMONIES class, both sexes live till old age in an atmosphereof sensuality without seduction. The young son of the house led me back acrossthe court, where the negresses were still shriekingand scurrying, and passing to and fro like a stage-procession with the vain paraphernalia of a teathat never came. Our host still smiled from hiscushions, resigned to Oriental delays. To distractthe impatient westerners, a servant unhooked fromthe wall the cage of a gently-cooing dove. It wasbrought to us, still cooing, and looked at me withthe same resigned and vacant ej^es as the ladies Ihad just left. As it was being restored to its hookthe slaves lolling about the entrance scattered re-spectfully at the approach of a handsome man ofabout thirty, with delicate features and a blackbeard. Crossing the court, he stooped to kiss theshoulder of our host, who introduced him as hiseldest son, the husband of one or two of the littlepale wives with whom I had been exchanging plati-tudes. Fro

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